


Your Living Friend, Awaiting My Grave

by Fushiacircle



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loneliness, Love Letters, M/M, POV Second Person, Past Character Death, Post-Those Left Behind, References to Depression, The letter is written in different times but it is not well divided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22080823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fushiacircle/pseuds/Fushiacircle
Summary: Horatio writes a letter to his deceased friend, Hamlet, after the events of the play. Never finishing it in one go, he writes it part by part, day after day, as much as his heart lets him.
Relationships: Hamlet/Horatio (Hamlet)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Your Living Friend, Awaiting My Grave

I write this, my sweet lord, because I could not speech soliloquies in the case that the guards would report me insane. Such a situation would send me out of the castle, out of Fortinbras’ listening ear. How would I then tell your story? I cannot live without fulfilling your wish. Your last words described to me that if I loved you, I live to tell the tale of this tragedy. 

There are times, such as now, that I regret not taking a sip of that poison. Even if I lived in agony for the rest of eternity, taking the pain would have been a release to the guilt that chains me to my own hell. You would have denied it. You would’ve called me not passion’s slave. My lord, you know many things, but a bee doesn’t know what a crab can do to human flesh. You wouldn’t recognize me now. It is a fear that once I die and reach for you, you won’t see me. You’ll see a man whose soul has withered, whose soul is halfway into the ground. 

I am not yet passion’s slave. But the guards had to pry me away from your beautiful corpse; they have to drag me from your grave every night. I picture my grave beside yours. It is a soothing daydream. Fortinbras enjoys your story and he wants me to live to say it. He is considering having it become a play. You love plays. Do you like being the protagonist of a play? Of course you do. When we meet again, tell me what you think of it. 

There are truths that I shall reveal here rather than in the afterlife. Whether I will lose the urge to tell you or not, who shall know? 

It has been lonesome without you. Isn’t it ironic that I looked down upon those that willingly followed their lovers to their graves? It wasn’t until I saw blood running down your mouth that I understood. It is a horror that even one’s impending death cannot rival in. 

My love for you I may dare say competes with Ophelia’s. She loved you, yes, but she didn’t love you the way you are. With your craziest, manic impulses, with your intrusive passion, with your procrastination gift wrapped in patience. You treat me not as an enemy, not as a woman, not as a rival, but a friend. Sometimes I fool myself in thinking that only I did you love appropriately. You never hurt me until your end. That is an honor that will remain in me for a millenium. 

You made me not fear hell. A man that loves another man as a lover is burned and killed, proclaimed to condemnation in hell. A man that seeks his own justice has a special place in Lucifer's cells. It breaks my heart to think that you would be in such a place when God had placed you in that situation. What else could you have done? Resentment would bitter your heart and soul. God didn’t like vinegar souls. The devil did. You were condemned from the start. 

Why can’t you haunt me, as your father haunted you? Torment me, remind me of my mistakes, drown me in both our miseries. Anything for a glimpse of your form. Anything for a whisper of a soliloquy. Anything for a taste of that endless passion. Tell me what I’m doing wrong, what I’m doing right. Tell me if you’re in heaven or hell. How is it like? Would you beckon me to join? 

I will join you soon. My witness account is almost completely and the playwright is catching up to the details. I am making sure that the play is right. I would check the actors if I would not be torn for who shall play you. No man could replace your image, your voice, your soul. I can’t live to see it. 

I hope you can forgive me, Hamlet, as I forgave you. Wait for me. Tear me apart if you cannot accept the love I contain within me; bury me underneath a graveyard of tormenting souls if you wish to do so. I’m sure you’ve convinced the devil at your side by now. Just allow me a moment with you. A sight would be all I could have and I would be satisfied. 

Your living friend, 

Horatio.


End file.
